Take the Big Bang for example. No one knows what caused it, but the effects of it are observable and measurable. My personal hypothesis is that the universe is like a balloon that keeps on expanding and contracting over trillions of years. It is currently expanding, but when the universe reaches a critical mass, assisted by the numerous black holes, it will start shrinking again. It will collapse into a massive black hole, which will eventually explode again with a new Big Bang and so on. I don't have any evidence to support such an idea, nor have I presented it to the scientific community, but it's a neat and tidy explanation that I'm satisfied with.

It is inconsistent with the evidence, though. And some basic physics. Your make a comment about when the universe reaches a critical mass, however it isn't increasing or decreasing in mass. Black holes don't add mass to the universe, they just concentrate it. It's like when you rake leaves into a pile... there's not more leaves, they're just all in one place. If you presumed that the universe was flat (I'll be talking more in my response to Sarge on that) and that there's only gravity at play, then you would expect that the expansion would slow down, then eventually reverse, much like a ball that is thrown into the air will slow and come back down. However, we see an increasing rate of expansion, which is not what would be consistent with that.

I've heard the theory that the universe will keep expanding forever, and I could never wrap my head around that. With all the mass in the universe, shouldn't we expect everything to eventually gravitate back to a center? Gravity obeys the inverse square law, so it never completely vanishes at any distance, and with all the time in the universe, shouldn't gravity suck everything back into the big crunch at the end of time? As I understand it, the expanding forever theorists are pointing to mysterious properties of dark matter and dark energy to explain their theory. I haven't looked into those much.
The question that intrigued me was, how did the cycle begin? If our big bang was caused by the most recent big crunch, what caused the previous big bang? Where did it all begin? Nothing comes from nothing, so how did the first big bang happen? I'm sure you won't be shocked when I tell you I believe that was God's doing.

If there was just the mass alone, you would expect exactly that, and as I mentioned in my response to timmoisphere. And dark matter actually would play more into that as dark matter actually increases the mass of the universe. A huge part of that is when we look at how stars move within galaxies, and how galaxies interact with one another, the masses involved cannot be accounted for just by looking at the visible portions of the universe (stars, gases, etc). That actually means that most of the mass in the universe is stuff we can't directly see, although we can see their gravitational effects.
Dark energy comes into it because we see that the universe is not just expanding, but the rate of expansion is actually increasing. While that alone can be explained with a complex geometry for space (what we'd call an open universe), other observations indicate that the universe is not nearly curved enough to explain that. Which means there has to be an additional force that is creating an outward force stronger than the inward force from gravity, and that's where dark energy enters the picture. The existence of dark energy not only shows up in the theoretical work done by Einstein, but has also been detected using several different methods, which have independent biases, and so they function as very strong evidence for the existence of dark energy. As such, all evidence currently points to the universe just expanding forever.

It doesn't address what happened before the Big Bang, but it is worth noting that the statement "nothing comes from nothing" isn't at all true. Nothing rather routinely comes from nothing throughout the universe, as particles appear and disappear all the time in rules that are explained in quantum physics. It's been hypothesized that that would be a very strong explanation for the universe..... larger and larger things are less and less likely to come into existence, but technically are not impossible to have happen. Physicist Lawrence Krauss has put forward a hypothesis that is fairly consistent with observations that may explain exactly how the universe came into being (and can be watched on Youtube for anyone interested) but there hasn't been a way devised to test it yet, from what I've heard, and certainly not any tests carried out yet to verify it, but it is promising. That said, a key point here is that from a scientific mindset, while we have some ideas that might explain it, there is not a rush to claim an answer, but an acknowledged uncertainty. That we don't have an answer now doesn't mean we can't in the future, and so there's no intention to insert an answer now just to fill in space.

If all God can do is ensure that the exact amount of money is delivered to one needy household, then he's not a very powerful God. I would think that God, if he wanted to demonstrate his power more effectively, would help those starving children in Africa. But maybe he's too busy helping Tebow throw touchdowns.

we don't need to note a complex moral calculus that is beyond the scope of the human mind to have this discussion. it's pretty simple. no one deserves to be punished for all eternity - end of story.

This is quite a ways from where we began our discussion. Then, you were insisting that Christianity didn't make sense, because rather than sending someone to Hell, one could simply "not create them." But while Bull Connor need not suffer in order for his children to exist, he does have to have existed in the first place so that he could sire them. Having given up that argument, I think you've come to something more honest now. It's not that there's anything incoherent about Christianity as a religion. It's that you simply don't like what the religion teaches. That's perfectly fine, but it's a distinct thing.

i don't think its a ways from the original discussion at all. a "loving" god who lets his creations rot in hell forever just does not make any sense - particularly when he had the option of not creating people in the first place. simply: it does not make sense to damn someone to eternal pain and suffering in order for others to live happy and blessed lives. this is a repugnant concept, and the idea of a loving god who allows people to be damned forever is simply incoherant. you're right, though, that i (obviously) don't like this facet of religion. i don't think anyone who has any semblance of compassion would - as evidenced by the fact a large percentage of christians don't believe god would do this, despite what it says in the bible. do you have compassion? is eternal damnation a fit punishment to any crime? never mind faith, or love -- do you respect a supreme being who allows this to happen? i mean, we're not talking about racist murderers here, we're just talking about people who don't choose to employ faith in a supreme being in their lives.

God's will is that everyone would come to know Him and the salvation that He offers through Jesus Christ. However, He will not compel people to do so. He's not like that and never has been. All humans have free will, the freedom to choose. Sadly, many already have through the centuries, and will continue in the future, to reject the message that He is offering. Yes, those who turn their backs on Him will be comdemned to spend eternity forever separated from His presence. I don't relish the thought of anyone spending eternity in Hell, not at all, and God doesn't either. He is compassionate and loving, but for those who never acknowledge Him as Creator and Savior, He will comdemn them.

BTW, Christianity should not really be considered a "religion," but rather a relationship with the God who created us in His image and likeness.

And atheism shouldn't be considered a religion either, but rather a relationship with reality.

@timmoishere, you don't agree with me, fine. But your constant attempts at putting me down and trying to prove that I'm in the wrong without even listening to what I'm saying are getting downright irritating. You're trying to steamroll over me and win an argument, and I'm simply pointing out that Christianity and all its pillars - Jesus Christ, the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Bible - are true, no matter that there exists, in your eyes, "no vaunted scientific proof" for it.

In order for the Bible to be true, there would have to actually be some evidence for its supernatural claims. There isn't. It's not about my opinion; a neutral observer when presented with scientific facts versus the claims put forth in the Bible will always choose science.

The Bible itself is a compilation of oral traditions from many differing cultures, combined into one hundreds or thousands of years after the stories' origination. Given this dubious history, how can any of it be considered true from a historical perspective?

God's will is that everyone would come to know Him and the salvation that He offers through Jesus Christ. However, He will not compel people to do so. He's not like that and never has been. All humans have free will, the freedom to choose. Sadly, many already have through the centuries, and will continue in the future, to reject the message that He is offering. Yes, those who turn their backs on Him will be comdemned to spend eternity forever separated from His presence. I don't relish the thought of anyone spending eternity in Hell, not at all, and God doesn't either. He is compassionate and loving, but for those who never acknowledge Him as Creator and Savior, He will comdemn them.

let's say the punishment for stealing a loaf of bread is death. would you support this law on the basis that, because you haven't stolen anything, you'll be fine?

then take it further: what if the thief in question only stole the bread to feed his starving child? would you stand up for your fellow man, on the basis that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, or just sit back thinking, "oh well, it's sad, but they knew the law"? would you respect the lawmakers of the land?

I also don't recall Skywalker replying to my earlier point about how Christianity is a mishmash of older religions, combined into one to make it more appealing to the masses. Let's review:

Sorry for the large pic here, but this was the best one I could find. Each of those other 5 gods were worshiped long before Jesus was born. You can clearly see from this data that the story of Jesus borrowed heavily from these other traditions. Horus, in particular, dates around 2000 years before the time of Jesus.

But that's not all Christianity borrows from. The Sumerian story of Gilgamesh was the basis for the Noah's Ark tale in the Bible. Other stories, such as Daniel in the lion's den, many of the psalms and the creation story itself, originated in the Ugaritic tablets that date to roughly 1300 BC. No Old Testament manuscript has been dated to be older than 800 BC.